The great German sausage crisis
More and more butcher shops are closing in Germany and fewer and fewer people want to learn the trade. So who is going to make the sausages?
In Germany in 2002 there were some 19,000 small, neighbourhood butcher shops. They made and sold, among other things, that 鈥済reat emblem" of Germany鈥檚 national diet 鈥 sausages. At last count, in 2021, there were fewer than 11,000 shops left. The German butchers' trade association says there are 鈥渕assive problems鈥 finding trained staff and young people who want to learn from the bottom up.
In L枚rrach, in the south-west of Germany, the Chamber of Handcraft, is now looking overseas in order to preserve local culinary traditions. A group of apprentices from India has just started a three-year training programme at the local college and various shops in the vicinity. The decline of the butchers鈥 shop 鈥 and the threat to the sausage 鈥 mirrors a problem in many branches across the whole of Germany; in social care, in bakeries, in the building trade. People at the top of an ageing population are leaving the workforce at a higher rate than those entering at the bottom. The chamber of trade will likely be going back to India later this year to recruit for other industries.
Producer/presenter: Tim Mansel
(Photo by Tim Mansel)
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